by Rebecca Tope
Simmy blinked. ‘That’s a bit strong. What do the others think?’
‘George probably agrees with her. Eddie wouldn’t commit himself, and Lynn keeps her thoughts pretty close.’
‘And you?’
‘I think it’s too late for any recriminations. It’s happened and we can’t change it now.’
They were still snuggled together on the bed, balancing coffee and toast precariously on their middles. ‘I’m still hungry,’ Christopher announced. ‘What time does the pub open?’
‘I don’t know. They’ll start lunches at around twelve, I suppose. That’s ages away yet.’
‘Less than an hour, actually.’
‘No! It can’t be.’
‘We didn’t wake up till nearly ten. It was a busy night.’
She giggled. ‘The day’s half gone already. How awful of us.’
‘Slobs. That’s what we are. I could get used to it.’
She gathered mugs and plates and put them on the floor. Then she turned and gave him a long considering look. The brisk efficient auctioneer of the day before was completely absent. Stubble was appearing on his chin, his hair was spiky, and his naked skin banished any hint of the world of work. She pressed her face to his chest, breathing in the natural smell of him. ‘You’re like a flower,’ she mumbled foolishly. ‘A big wild flower growing in a humid forest somewhere. Something that has huge leaves and deep roots.’ She could see it quite clearly in her imagination.
‘And you’re like a lovely lustre vase. One of the undecorated Moorcrofts, I think. Worth a fortune. And quietly indestructible, unless treated with deliberate violence.’
She wasn’t sure she liked that image. ‘Some people might say we’ve got it the wrong way round.’
‘People know nothing. Isn’t this strange?’ he went on. ‘Our first night together, after all those years.’
‘We were far too young before. I’d have been terrified.’
‘And me. We’d have made a mess of it. I never forgot you, though.’
‘I have to admit I did, once Tony came along. I didn’t have any space left over for memories of young love. He was pretty full on. Hard work, a lot of the time.’
‘Don’t talk about him. He’s an idiot.’
‘He is. I don’t know what I was thinking, marrying him.’
‘We’ve wasted a terrible lot of time.’
She deliberately misunderstood him. ‘Come on.’ She rolled out of bed, and grabbed a handful of clothes. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’
‘Can I come?’
‘If you must.’ She wasn’t sure she wanted him to, and it showed.
‘I’ll take the tap end, of course,’ he said gallantly.
It was a splashy, squashed business, and Simmy wasn’t entirely sure she was ever going to want to have sex in a bath again. But Christopher obviously enjoyed it enormously.
They had roast chicken at the pub, not talking very much. The Mortal Man was Simmy’s local, but she did not go there very often. It had a roaring fire, and the views towards the great fells just beyond Troutbeck were magnificent. Even in November there were walkers, with their boots and rucksacks. One couple came accompanied by a Lakeland terrier, which made Simmy think of her father.
‘My dad loved the auction,’ she said. ‘He’s going to treasure that dish he bought.’
‘I know. I saw his face. We like bidders like him. Usually they keep very po-faced. The dealers like to pretend it’s all very boring. There are still a few who just flick a finger or even wink, when they’re bidding. Silly, really. But it’s a world unto itself. I feel like a novice compared to some of the old-timers.’
‘Is it as corrupt as they say? Ringers – is that the word? Fixing things up in advance and keeping prices low.’
‘The system makes some of that unavoidable. It’s not really a very good way to sell things of real value. Not our sort of place, anyhow. Most of the stuff comes from house clearances, and isn’t expected to fetch much. The job lots go for almost nothing, and there’s often really good things down at the bottom of the box.’
‘Do you see the same items coming round again?’
He nodded. ‘All the time. Mainly, though, it’s the unsold stuff. People just leave it till the next sale, and the next one after that. It all goes eventually.’
‘It has a sort of magic to it, doesn’t it?’
‘Absolutely. And we get people who’re absolutely addicted. Housewives, who first came because they needed a rug or a big cooking pot, and just can’t stop coming back. They buy all sorts of mad stuff. I often wonder what they do with it all.’
‘My granny lived near a big council dump, thirty years ago. It was in the days when you could go and take stuff. Nobody ever supervised or tried to stop her. She mainly took things for the garden, and ended up with a whole row of big old sinks, baths, dead wheelbarrows – anything you could put plants in. It looked quite good, in a crazy sort of way. It all went back to the tip when she died.’
Simmy entertained a brief thought of asking about his grandmother’s jewellery, which Moxon seemed to think might have relevance to Kit’s murder. But she pushed it away, as likely to wreck the atmosphere. The reminiscences so far were easy, friendly and unthreatening. A post-coital haze gave it all a warm glow. Christopher still hadn’t shaved, and his hair remained untidy. They sat with legs touching under the table, and often lapsed into long silences in which they simply stared into each other’s eyes. Simmy could not explain to herself what was happening, or what it might imply. She could do no more than remain in the present moment and savour every second.
Chapter Eighteen
They walked back to her cottage, only to find a familiar car squeezed against the hedge, leaving the barest room for passing traffic to get by.
‘That’ll be Moxon,’ Simmy sighed, before they got close enough to see inside the car. ‘Trust him to show up on a Sunday afternoon.’
‘You mean the policeman? The detective? Why would he be here?’
She caught the whiff of jealousy, and smiled. ‘Why do you think?’ she said.
‘I honestly do not have a clue,’ he responded swiftly. ‘If he thinks you can help him solve my father’s murder, he must be nuts. You can’t possibly know anything about it.’
‘I suppose that’s true.’ Her mind felt cloudy, as she struggled to reconcile all the different assumptions surrounding Kit’s death. ‘But somehow that’s not how it feels.’
The key to the puzzle then climbed out of the front passenger seat, and much was made clear. ‘That’s Ben,’ she said. ‘Look – that’s Ben.’ She ran the final few yards, intending to clasp the youth to her breast in relief at seeing him. But her quarry raised his hands to fend her off.
‘Quite a little gathering, by the looks of it,’ said DI Moxon, eyeing Christopher impassively.
Simmy was only interested in Ben. ‘Are you okay now?’ she wanted to know. ‘Did your mother …?’ She faltered, afraid of stumbling into murky waters. ‘I saw her yesterday.’
‘I know you did. And she’s been behaving very weirdly ever since. What did you say to her?’
Three of them were clustered together on the narrow path to Simmy’s front door. Christopher hung back, unnoticed by the others. Moxon seemed to think he had effected a fond reconciliation between Ben and Simmy, the way he stood over them, smiling like a benign uncle.
‘Are you all coming in?’ asked Simmy.
‘Not me,’ said Christopher. ‘I’ll be getting back now. Better see if I can keep everybody happy, Hannah especially.’
The tetchy tone was impossible to miss. Simmy stepped away from Ben, to grab Christopher’s arm. ‘It’s been lovely,’ she said, not caring what the others might think. ‘Don’t spoil it now. I didn’t know these two were going to show up. You can stay a bit, can’t you?’
His expression softened. ‘I don’t think they’d want me to. I can see things are complicated. It has been lovely, but maybe the timing wasn’t great. Best get all t
his stuff settled first, eh? I can recognise divided loyalties when I see them. And that’s not a criticism – it’s the same my end, as well. Hannah really did sound serious, earlier on. I ought to go and see what she wants.’
‘All right, then. But phone me this evening, okay? Don’t go all silent on me.’
‘You needn’t worry.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘It’s okay, Sim. Or it will be soon, I promise.’
She felt an involuntary shudder ripple through her. ‘Don’t say that,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not asking for promises.’
He blinked, bewildered. ‘What did I say?’
‘Nothing.’ She laughed and gave him a little push. ‘Phone me this evening and I’ll try to explain.’
Moxon and Ben stood side by side, shamelessly watching the affectionate parting. When Simmy turned back to them, they had very similar expressions on their faces. Benign tolerance seemed to sum it up, and she marvelled at how little irritation it made her feel. Rather, she was soothed and warmed by it. ‘Come on in, then,’ she said. ‘It’s cold out here.’
She made tea and found a rather dried-up fruit cake to offer them, all the while wondering what sort of conversation the three of them could possibly be about to have. Moxon showed signs of being present in a less-than-professional capacity. More of a facilitator, she guessed – bringing Ben back into the fold, using Simmy to reassure him. Although why the detective should be actively engaged in such a process was unclear. There had been several times when the man had deplored the youngster’s reckless enthusiasm for the darker side of human behaviour. When Ben had fallen into genuine danger, his elders had all reproached themselves for it, in their various ways. So why should they now be making any effort to put things back to how they’d been prior to that adventure?
‘You went to the auction, did you?’ Moxon asked, after an uncomfortable silence.
She had forgotten all about her commission of the previous day. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘And?’ he prompted.
‘What do you want me to say? It was fun. Christopher was brilliant. Dad bought a lovely dish.’
‘Did he indeed?’
‘It was a very nice day out. I had no idea it would be so exciting. The time flew by. Until Hannah accosted me, that is. She seemed in a bit of a state.’
‘Hannah Henderson? Daughter of the victim.’ It was Ben who spoke. ‘What did she say?’
‘I can’t remember all of it. She was angry about both her parents dying, which seemed fair enough. But she wasn’t very nice to me. Said her mother always thought I was a perfect daughter. A paragon. I don’t believe that’s true, and even if it is, it wasn’t my fault, was it?’
Neither of her visitors spoke. A nudging idea was bothering her, to do with Kit Henderson and women other than his wife. Quite how it connected to the topic under discussion was obscure. Then she remembered a possible link. ‘Christopher said his father warned him away from me when we were young.’
‘How young?’ asked Moxon.
‘Sixteen. We were in love, but we never did anything about it. I was fairly immature, I suppose. Kit was probably right.’
‘But it raises the notion of you as a figure on a pedestal, in the eyes of both the Henderson parents,’ summarised Moxon, with an intelligent gleam in his eye.
‘Yes,’ she agreed slowly. ‘How very strange that feels. I thought I was being included in a big family, as a natural thing – because it suited everybody. Now I’m wondering whether the whole set-up was organised for my benefit. Can that be right? All those holidays. I know my father never really enjoyed it. He must have been going along with it, for my sake.’
‘But your mother and Mrs Henderson were close friends.’
‘I suppose they were. They were very different people, though. Hardly anything in common. Fran always seemed to be in Mum’s shadow, struggling to keep up.’ Again she remembered the belated awareness of just how unhappy the Henderson marriage had probably been.
‘Class differences,’ said Ben, with a disdainful sniff.
‘Probably. Although you can’t exactly say that. We’re nothing special.’
‘Both your parents have got degrees. The Hendersons probably left school at sixteen.’
‘They did,’ she nodded. ‘But they weren’t stupid.’
‘How did the two men get along?’ Moxon asked.
‘I can’t remember them ever really talking to each other, or doing things together. They weren’t hostile, but you could tell they couldn’t see much point in trying to be friends. It was all about the women and children.’
‘We still haven’t got any handle on that jewellery,’ said the detective. ‘There’s no sign of an inventory anywhere, and the sister, Mrs Lloyd, was unhelpful. Insisted there’d never been any jewels, apart from a cheap pearl necklace and a little watch with marcasite round it. Both lost somehow.’
‘Mrs Lloyd?’ Simmy frowned. ‘Oh – Christine. Of course. She’s very like Fran to look at, isn’t she.’ Then she giggled. ‘Oh, what a fool. You never knew Fran, did you? Her sister was very British at the funeral, according to my mother. I didn’t talk to her.’
‘I didn’t know there was anything about any jewellery,’ said Ben, somewhat sulkily.
‘Well, there isn’t, anyway,’ said Moxon. ‘A red herring.’
‘A pretext for sending Simmy to that auction,’ accused the boy.
‘I won’t dignify that with a response,’ said Moxon, with steel in his voice.
Another silence fell, during which Simmy wished Moxon would go away and leave her with Ben. She was also missing Christopher, whose abrupt departure left her feeling abandoned. Unpicking events of twenty years ago seemed futile and Ben’s comment on the jewellery raised her own suspicions.
As if reading her mind, Moxon got to his feet. ‘If I leave Ben here, will you take him home?’ he asked.
She nodded, recalling the two pints of beer she had recently consumed. ‘Later on,’ she said.
‘I’ve got driving lessons booked after Christmas,’ said Ben. ‘It’s tedious having to cadge lifts all the time.’
‘You haven’t got time,’ Simmy objected. ‘All those A levels! All that studying. You’ll never fit driving in as well.’
‘Yeah, I will,’ he insisted. ‘I won’t need many lessons.’
Moxon paused on his way out. ‘Was Hannah Henderson with anybody?’ he asked.
‘Oh – yes. A man called Malcolm. He’s got a wife called Cheryl, who was Kit’s workmate from ages ago. They were at Fran’s funeral. They’re going on a cruise, so they’ll miss Kit’s funeral. Didn’t I mention them before, along with a woman called June?’
‘You did to me,’ said Ben with a smirk.
Moxon gave him another severe look, then said to Simmy, ‘And Hannah was with him?’
‘She says he does a bit of antique dealing. I don’t think there’s anything else between them than that. She was quite angry with me,’ she finished.
‘Yes. You said that. Can’t have been very nice for you.’ His sympathy, as always, was genuine, and therefore unsettling.
‘Oh well. I should be big enough to take it. I’ve got no reason to complain, really.’
‘And did you see anybody else you recognised, at the auction?’
‘I don’t think so. Dad didn’t, either. But then, he was so fixated on Christopher, and the bidding, that he never looked at the other people. So was I, if I’m honest. Sorry,’ she ended lamely. ‘I wasn’t a very good spy, was I?’
‘Should have sent me instead,’ said Ben.
Simmy refrained from reminding him that he had in fact turned down her request for him to go. There was still a subtle sense of a young man in a state of convalescence. Simmy had been so worried about him over recent months that she could not believe that he was entirely recovered yet. The sudden knock-back at finding Kit Henderson’s body couldn’t fail to take its toll. ‘You couldn’t have got there,’ she said reasonably.
‘True. Which is why I need to drive. Mela
nie had her licence when she was my age. And the use of a car.’
‘I’m off, then,’ said Moxon. He threw Ben an affectionate glance, quite unlike anything that might be expected from a police detective. ‘You could do worse than take Miss Todd as your role model,’ he smiled. ‘I have a lot of time for that young woman.’
The departure of Melanie from her position as Simmy’s shop assistant had given them all some grief. She was now working in a hotel outside Hawkshead, forging a career path that brooked no opposition. None of the Windermere and Bowness friends saw very much of her these days.
‘We all do,’ said Simmy. ‘She’s a hard act to follow.’ Then, with an irrational glance around the room, she went on, ‘And where’s Bonnie?’
‘Not here,’ laughed Ben. ‘Corinne wanted her for something. That seems to happen a lot these days. I think she – Corinne, I mean – is worried that Bonnie’s going to move out soon. She’s mega fond of her, you know. Better than a lot of mothers.’
‘Better than Bonnie’s mother,’ said Moxon feelingly. He knew more than was comfortable about the tangled troubles that surrounded Bonnie Lawson’s family. ‘Bye, both. See you again soon, I expect.’ And he was gone.
They listened for his car engine, and then Simmy got up and closed the curtains of her front room. ‘Dark already,’ she sighed, before realising that she had been saying this every day like a daft old woman. ‘Soon be Christmas,’ she added, hoping to change the mood.
‘Are you and Chris Henderson together now, then?’ The question was bold and unambiguous.
‘Um … well, it’s early days, but I hope we are. We were a bit like you and Bonnie when we knew each other all those years ago. It’s strange getting to know him again. He’s sort of the same, but sort of different, now.’
‘You’ve both got baggage,’ he said knowingly.
She laughed. ‘You might say that, I suppose.’
‘You know – I’ve hardly ever been up here to your house.’ He looked around. ‘You’ve got it nice and cosy, haven’t you? That is – it would be, if you lit the fire. Haven’t you got any logs?’